Document Type
Conference Paper
Publication Date
2024
Abstract
Australia's coal-fired power stations accounted for approximately 23% of the country's total Green House Gas (GHG) emissions from all power stations in the 2021-2022 period. These emissions encompass both Scope 1 and Scope 2 categories. Such a significant contribution has led to continuous criticism of the coal industry within Australia, as the global energy landscape shifts towards a broader range of low to zero-emission energy sources. This transition calls for the coal industry to explore innovative methods to capture and remove Green House Gas emissions, particularly CO2, which is a major contributor to global warming. Current CO2 disposal methodologies are predominantly focused on injecting CO2 into deep aquifers and depleted oil and gas reservoirs. In this paper, we propose an alternative approach for the permanent disposal of CO2 emissions from coal-fired power stations. This approach involves the underground injection of CO2 into ultramafic and mafic deposits located within economical distances from these stations in Southeast Australia. The exothermic reactions between CO2 and magnesium- and calcium-rich minerals in ultramafic and mafic rocks lead to the permanent conversion of CO2 into stable carbonate minerals. This process eliminates the need for extensive monitoring and control systems to detect any unintended CO2 seepage on the surface and is expected to lower the running costs of CO2 disposal.
Publication Details
Muhannad Al Kalbani, Mehdi Serati, Harald Hoffman and Thierry Bore, A niche application of permanent CO2 disposal from coal-fired power stations via mineralisation in proximal mafic and ultramafic deposits, Proceedings of the 2024 Resource Operators Conference, University of Wollongong - Mining Engineering, February 2024, 267-275.